News items posted on the Internet usually come in two forms–those you can comment on and those you can’t. Now, Google is adding a third category for news you can comment on, but only if you are directly involved in the news item your comment is for.

Our long-term vision is that any participant will be able to send in their comments, and we’ll show them next to the articles about the story … Comments will be published in full, without any edits, but marked as ‘comments’ so readers know it’s the individual’s perspective rather than part of a journalist’s report.

Before the comments are posted, the identity of the writer needs to be confirmed by a number of sources, and currently Google is only offering the service in the U.S.

Opinion as to the new system has so far been mixed, with worries that comments from people affiliated with the story may dilute the facts if the comment isn’t 100% correct e.g. A company responding to an item about their company doing something wrong and trying to limit the damage. Another problem highlighted is the Google checks may take too long, meaning opinion is only added after the news leaves the front pages.

On paper, this is a good idea, as it could really add something to the news that is being reported. The biggest problem is the time it takes to vet the person making the comment and the information contained within that comment.

You can guarantee that if a negative news item comes out about a large company it will be straight on to Google with a comment for release that has been vetted by the lawyers. Google verifying the identity should be an easy task. Meanwhile, the person making a claim against a company may be an individual, and the comment may take longer to verify. In essence, this system may favor the corporate entities who have the most to lose from negative news and the most to gain from positive news purely because they can prove their identity quickly.

Google needs to be careful with this system, as the company has said comments will be verified as coming from legitimate sources. If it gets this wrong, then it could cause major problems and possibly lead to legal action if a comment is detrimental to someone or some company and turns out to have been falsely written.